5 Worrying Phenomenons Around The World

There are countless things that happen every day in the world; some good, and some bad. Boosted by the availability of the internet, we now have more access to what’s going on, and some of these phenomenons are cause for concern.

1) Smartphone Addiction

Do you mindlessly scroll through your phone even when you know there’s better things to do? If your answer is yes, you might have smartphone addiction. Our smartphones are extremely useful and productive gadgets, but now we just can’t seem to put them down. Smartphone addiction can cause a wide range of problems from health hazards to death (accidents), but somehow we still dismiss them. This has been going on for quite some time, and if we don’t remedy this soon, we might lose our real-life social skills altogether and “live” only virtually.

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2) Stress

Everyone knows this word, and it might be one of the words you utter most frequently in a day. Many things have the potential to induce stress, such as having a heavy workload, divorce, and chronic illness among others. From the sound of it, it’s almost impossible to escape stress; since even being caught in a traffic jam can be labelled as “stress”. However, as CNN contributor Amanda Enayati wrote, “Stress is not what happens to you, but how you react”, it’s actually our own attitudes that decide if we’re stressed or not. It’s time we find ways to lessen our stress before we push ourselves to mental breakdown.

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3) Viral Trends/Challenges

The widespread availability of the internet has allowed people to share and view anything they want, anywhere, and this isn’t always a good thing. Especially popular with teens, they tend to follow whatever’s “trending” at the moment, and that includes “challenges”. Some challenges such as the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge and Mannequin Challenge are relatively harmless, but there are other challenges that could be fatal. The Blue Whale Challenge has led to suicides, and the recent Tide Pod Challenge has had people eat detergent, landing them in hospital.

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4) “Oversharenting”

A coined word from “sharing” and “parenting”, “oversharenting” refers to when parents share too much of their children’s information online. Yes, we know that all parents are proud of their children and would love to show them off, but what about the consequences? Parents share their children’s names, ages, photos, and sometimes even locations online, making them easy targets for kidnappers. You wouldn’t share this kind of information with a stranger on the street, would you? But online, you’re sharing it for all the world to see.

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5) Climate Change

You’ve heard of this one before, because it’s not exactly recent. Climate change is actually one of the worst problems we’re facing now, because it affects all life on earth. Melting ice glaciers and extreme weather is throwing the world’s natural balance off, and as a result everything else is affected. Corals are being bleached, habitats are being destroyed, and even the agriculture industry is affected. Efforts are being made to save the earth, but unless everyone does something, there might not be a future to look forward to after all.